Joan and Co.

Dicky Burnett left about the middle of March for Palm Beach. It was his father’s suggestion, and Dicky fell in with it principally because it would give him a legitimate excuse for writing to Joan. If he could not see her, he had much better be a thousand miles away than in the same city. It would be less of a strain. Of late he had been doing nothing but search the crowds for her like a private detective hunting for a lost person.

In the office he was impossible. He was in fact a good deal of a nuisance both to Forsythe and his father. He particularly interfered unconsciously with the latter’s freedom of movement. By degrees Burnett senior had turned over to Forsythe practically all his own work because of lack of time to attend to it himself. In many ways his habits resembled a good deal those of his son. He still reached the office early, but he was out again by ten and seldom returned until after three. By then he was too tired to do much more than attend to the routine matters requiring his signature.

At Palm Beach Dicky did his best to enjoy himself, and every one, including the hotel management, did his best to help him. He ran across Diblee, who introduced him at the country club, and a group of very agreeable people who were succeeding extraordinarily well in forgetting that such a city as New York existed. As far as he could judge, nothing in particular remained in their consciousness but blue sky and palm trees and green grass and music and pleasant drinks and laughing eyes. There was one especially nice girl whose name was Constance—Constance Shirley. She was slight and young and seemed to divine at once his unhappiness. She had big blue eyes and danced like a bit of thistledown, and was always seeking the air after each dance. And she had a way of tempting a man to talk of what was deep within him at such times because she gave the impression that she would understand. Not only understand but comfort a fellow. It was surprising how often her soft hand accidentally brushed his and what opportunities she offered him to talk of matters of sentiment.

Yet always at the speaking point Dicky paused. It seemed like sacrilege to discuss Joan, even indirectly, with any other woman. With her always uppermost in his mind it seemed like sacrilege to discuss even abstract problems of sentiment. So generally he lighted a cigarette and drifted into silence by the side of this Constance, staring dreamily and alone at the wonderful Southern night sky which is as fickle in its sentiment as a rondeau of François Villon. It urges a youth to love with the nearest. Love is love and a man but a man and woman but a woman. If tender lips and warm hands are near, a man is a fool to ignore them, for life at best is short and youth but a brief portion of life.

Yet Dicky always paused even when the nights were fairest. The girl by his side was baffled and stung and made eager by those long silences. Covertly she studied the sadness about his lips which came to her like a challenge.

One night she said to him boldly, “Mr. Burnett, I think you’re in love.”

He was startled, but he answered only, “So?”

“Are you?” she insisted.

“I’ll leave you to guess,” he replied.

“I guess you are.”

“Why?”

“Because you are sad.”

“Does love make one sad?” he asked.

“Either very happy or very sad.”

“Perhaps both,” he suggested.

“At the same time?” she laughed.

“It does sound absurd,” he admitted.

But that night, when in relief he found himself back alone in his room, that seemed as fair an analysis of his present mood as any. As miserable as he was he would not, as the price of happiness, have surrendered his love for Joan. Hopeless as now he felt that passion to be, he clung to it as the greatest joy in his life. So he felt he always would.

He had telephoned her before he left and asked to see her, but she had answered that it was impossible that morning.

“I may have some good news for you soon,” she said.

When he pressed her for an explanation, it turned out to be nothing but good news concerning that fool business scheme of hers. It only emphasized how lightly she thought of him.

She had written twice since then—the sort of letters one might expect from a private secretary. He had written at least a dozen times—the sort of letters that might be expected to make a private secretary’s cheeks burn. Yet he doubted if they accomplished even that much.

In this fashion, then, he frittered away a month without improving either his physical condition, which did not need improving, or his mental condition, which did. At this point he received a letter from his mother which further disturbed him. She ran on for a couple of pages about nothing in particular, like warning him again to be careful not to get drowned if he went in bathing, and then said:

“I’m a little bit worried about your father. He is not sleeping well and is losing weight. He blames it on his diet and I wondered if perhaps he was not carrying it too far. He is very apt to do that unless some one watches him. If you wrote him that he might, under the circumstances, eat a little pastry, I think it might help him. However, use your own judgment. He won’t weigh himself, but I am sure he has lost at least fifteen pounds since you went.”

When Dicky read that he sent the following wire to his father:

Don’t overdo the thing. Have some pumpkin pie.

But in spite of this action he was not fully satisfied. All through the rest of the day he kept thinking over that paragraph in his mother’s letter. While diet might account for his father’s loss of weight, which was good for him, it did not account for his sleeplessness. That was more apt to be caused by worry. This helped him to recall several peculiar incidents which had occurred preceding his departure, when he had not found his father in the office and had received anything but a satisfactory explanation from Forsythe. At the time he had not thought much about these things, because at night he found his father so normal that he always forgot to inquire further into them. But now that he was in search of symptoms he went back to them.

The upshot of the matter was that he said good-bye to Constance that evening—a curiously easy thing to do—and took the train the next morning for home. He reached New York at six o’clock in the afternoon of the next day and went direct to the house, where he found his father at dinner. He was startled by what a month had done for him. Offhand he would have said the man had lost twenty-five pounds and taken on almost as many years. His eyes looked heavy, and he sat listlessly at the table as Dicky came in. He tried to rouse himself, however, but it was manifestly an artificial attempt.

“What the deuce you been doing to yourself?” demanded Dicky as he took his hand. By the side of his lean, browned son he looked worse than ever and was conscious of it.

“I guess I ought to have gone with you,” he faltered.

“I should say so,” nodded Dicky. “What’s he been up to, Mother?”

“I’m afraid he’s been working too hard,” she ventured.

“Hang it all, I thought you were old enough to be left alone,” exclaimed Dicky.

“Don’t you worry about me,” growled Burnett with a trace of his old-time spirit.

“We won’t,” answered Dicky, “but believe me, we’re going to do something about it. You’ve got to get out of that office more. Golf is what you need. I saw a lot of the old boys down there on the links and it put new life into them.”

“Golf be hanged.”

Once or twice before Dicky had threatened golf, and everything considered it appeared a worse punishment than whole wheat bread.

“In the meanwhile, until the links are opened, we can get into condition by walking home every day. We’ll begin to-morrow.”

“Eh?”

“To-morrow. What’s the earliest you can leave the office?”

“Not until after three,” exclaimed Burnett nervously.

“I’ll be there at half-past, then,” declared Dicky.